Chris McKaskell and Chris Haindl and their team of artisans pride themselves on making sure their custom furniture and cabinets work on all levels 0

A beautiful coffee table designed with steel and a big slab of hardwood at McKaskell Haindl furniture display shop on Talbot Street in London, Ont. on Tuesday April 15, 2014.
Mike Hensen/The London Free Press/QMI Agency

Like the wood they love, Chris McKaskell and Chris Haindl have formed a partnership that is long-standing, flexible, adaptable and a work of art. Their backgrounds and skills blend beautifully to provide “real goods which need to be designed, built, delivered, adjusted and installed by real people.” The results are as unique as the customers.

McKaskell Haindl Design Build Inc. creates custom furniture and cabinets. “We make things fit,” McKaskell said. Fit, not just in terms of space, also in purpose, lifestyle, taste and budget. The two partners are proud of their small shop of highly skilled artisans who use local suppliers and train apprentices to follow in the future. The process is as important as the product.

Pipe organs and Bauhaus (the German art school from 1919-1933) shaped much of their philosophy — a product of their collective education and experience.

Haindl graduated from Western with a degree in psychology and from the Ontario College of Art in design, with a year at Sheridan College learning the art of glass blowing. McKaskell has a degree in art history, with a minor in physical geography from the University of Toronto. He paid his way through school as a carpenter and apprenticed in a woodcarving studio.

“The moment I finished, I began working for a pipe organ builder,” McKaskell said. The job taught him about longevity and maintenance. “Pipe organs are built to last hundreds of years. You’re always thinking of the next guy, the one who has to come in and service it. It has to be pretty obvious how it was put together so it is easy to service in the future.”

“Bauhaus was created to bring good design to the masses,” Haindl said. “It was simple good design for everybody. We are creating in the moment. We’re not following a style but trying to create our own.”

The founder of the Bauhaus school was architect Walter Gropius. Another architect who influenced McKaskell Haindl was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who combined function and practical design, historic and modern to develop furniture and buildings in his own distinct style.

“When we do our work, it’s recognizable,” McKaskell said.

“Typically it’s a clean, minimal style with a mix of materials and attention to detail, even minor details that show in the design and craftsmanship,” Haindl said.

“There’s a dynamic tension in the structure, a sense of movement,” McKaskell said. He pointed to a linear coffee table that gives the illusion of leaning like the Tower of Pisa. “It’s very tricky to make.”

The easy back-and-forth conversation also illustrates their roles in the process. It’s hard to tell where each starts and ends. After almost 20 years, it’s a process that works.

“We’ve been through some real fun ups and downs,” McKaskell said. “We can be more creative than commercial. We are very craft oriented. Things have shifted.”

Originally, they created kitchens for restaurants, the London Club and Katana Kafe for example. They shifted to more residential work. Participating in a one-of-a-kind show in Chicago spawned the hockey stick chair and several projects in the States.

After 9/11, the U.S. market stopped and they pulled back into Canada. The last few years they have concentrated on Toronto and London.

“When a tough economy happens, we try to adapt,” McKaskell said, listing several cabinet businesses that have folded recently. “Our strategy is to do unique, highly personalized work.”

Haindl’s strength is design. He meets initially with clients to determine the functional aspects of spaces — how they want a room to work and how one room will relate to those around it. “We discuss the scope of the project and their goals and what they want the space to be. From there, we get a general feel and style.”

After site measurements, Haindl starts to create plans based on function and ergonomics. Budget is also a key component. “You set the budget at the beginning and refer back to it along the process. We make changes and prioritize what elements become more important according to the budget. I help them understand the implications of their choices.”

Elevation drawings, especially for kitchens, show the client the fronts, the millwork and walls. McKaskell makes models and samples, plays with the finishes. “It gives people a chance to look at different possibilities.”

Decisions are made for style details and materials: flooring, lightings, walls, hardware and colours.

“We really like working with wood,” Haindl said. “In a kitchen, if we can do it, we have the sheet (of wood) custom pressed and sequenced. We select the flitch (slab of longitudinal lumber) and lay it out so it all matches.”

Much of the wood is reclaimed. A walnut table in the store was rescued after a developer knocked it over and left it to rot. The floor in the store looks like a rustic barn. It was made from trees from the Ministry of Natural Resources. “They were culled from a swamp and discarded,” McKaskell said. “They’re highly imperfect. It’s an excellent use of something left for garbage.”

Longevity and purpose are important to the pair.

“We tend to develop long-term relationships with customers,” McKaskell said. “We take new clients to see a prior project and show the work and how it wears over time.” He shows a recent photo of a kitchen done 10 years ago — the kitchen looks as new as the photo.

Many of their recent kitchens are quite traditional, but still feature high design, such as hand-carved corbels.

They employ five artisans, with individual talents such as woodturning, hand carving and shaping, veneers and solid woodworking. A recent series of furniture drew on all those skills. “Everyone in the shop had a hand in the decorative and structural elements,” McKaskell said.

“I love making things — and second to that is training the guys,” McKaskell said. “Currently, we have an apprentice and co-op student. There is a lot to learn in this trade, and a lot of new regulations. Proper training is more important than ever.”

He revisited his own training when the company created a few pipe organs. Haindl designed the fronts and McKaskell made the instruments.

“We have a willingness to change, to adapt and try new things,” Haindl said.

“This is the size we want to be. We never aimed to be a big powerhouse. This is more flexible.”

“Yes, this is manageable,” agreed McKaskell. “We’re not into growth, but sustainability.”